Protective suits such as chemical protective suits are used by emergency personnel to protect them against an array of toxic chemicals. These chemicals include blistering agents such as lewisite or mustard gas, choking agents such as phosgene (or CG as designated by the military), blood agents including cyanide based compounds such as hydrogen cyanide (AC), and nerve agents such as sarin, tabun, soman and others.
A variety of protective suits have been developed to protect wearers against the adverse effects of these chemicals as well as biological, nuclear and other environmental contaminants or conditions. The design aspects of these highly specialized suits depend largely upon their specific applications. However, if just trace amounts of these toxic vapors penetrate the chemical protective suit the result can be severe injury or death. Consequently, most all of such suits employ an external pressurized air source for introducing pressurized clean filtered breathable air into a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) that the user wears while wearing the protective suit.
Since protective suits are durable and prevent air flow from the ambient atmosphere into the suit, the interior of the suits can often become uncomfortably hot. To counteract this problem, in some cases, protective suits may employ liquid cooling systems that circulate liquid coolant from an external source. Whether air, water, or other fluid, the fluid must be pumped into the suit or expelled therefrom through tubes which are connected at suit couplings, i.e., “passthrough” assemblies. These passthrough assemblies must safeguard the integrity of the suit, especially in the chemical warfare context which often requires a hermetic seal. In such cases the couplings must be of the highest integrity and provide maximum protection against contamination. The designer must be cognizant of the fact that many chemical warfare agents are specifically intended for maximum penetration at seams and couplings.
While these types of cooling systems may provide some relief from the uncomfortable temperature a user experiences while wearing a protective suit, these systems require a supply of a cooling material, whether gas or liquid, and the necessary components to circulate the cooling material throughout the suit. Accordingly, unnecessary weight and bulkiness is added to the suit. Further, since the protective suits are often worn in harsh chemical environments, using potentially chemically-contaminated ambient air as a cooling material is highly undesired since it risks exposing the user to the chemical environment he or she is using the suit to be protected from.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.